Is there any end to the undiscovered bounty still lurking in the footnotes and margins of post-punk? It seems not.

Strange Passion is a new compilation from the Finders Keepers family dedicated to “explorations in Irish post-punk DIY and electronic music 1980-83”, and it’s really very good indeed. Curated by B-Music Dublin’s Darren McCreesh, it features 14 songs by the hitherto undervalued likes of Virgin Prunes, Dogmatic Element, SM Corporation, Stano and The Peridots, spanning dystopian minimal synth, oddball gothic punk and jangly, female-fronted new wave.

There’s an urgent, stripped-down aesthetic shared by all the constituent tracks, but nonetheless the variety on display is astonishing, and it makes this a far more compelling survey than some of the autistically focussed cold wave comps that have sprung up in their dozens since 2008. The compilation boasts extensive liner notes and rare photos, and was put together with the full participation of the featured artists.

Says McCreesh: “[This was a] time when the raw primitive sounds of punk began to absorb new ideas and technologies and emerging acts were reaching audiences on an unprecedented scale thanks to new magazines such as Hot Press and Heat, RTE Radio 2 and its Fanning Sessions, as well as new youth magazine programmes on national TV like Anything Goes. Access to UK’s broadcasting and magazine cultural behemoths (Peel, NME, Morley etc.) as well as touring bands such as The Clash and PiL also played their part in creating an appetite for this thrilling new subculture and soon venues such as The Magnet, Dandelion and Project Arts Centre in Dublin and Kampus in Cork became significant live music hubs.”

The tracks on Strange Passion were culled from short-run cassettes and highly limited, invariably privately pressed, 7″ releases. The comp, due out in July, will be the first release on Cache Cache, a new sub-label of Finders Keepers set up to “seek out shyly excitable electric pop music from the not too distant past”.

Tracklist:
1. Dogmatic Element – Just Friends
2. The Threat – High cost of living
3. Chant! Chant! Chant!- Play Safe
4. Virgin Prunes – Twenty Tens (i’ve been smoking all night long)
5. Operating Theatre – Austrian
6. Stano – Town
7. The Peridots – No Water
8. Choice – Always In Danger
9. Ph – Last Days
10. Major Thinkers – Avenue B
11. SM Corporation – Accentuate
12. SM Corporation – Fire from above
13. Tripper Humane – Discoland
14. Operating Theatre – Eighties Rampwalk (Fanning Session)